1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication devices and, more particularly, to enhanced messaging for communication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, electronic mail (email) is a common mode of communication. One person, acting as a sender, composes an email message and then sends the email message to another person designated as a recipient. The sender composes the email message by interacting with a communication device. The recipient is able to read the email message by interacting with another communication device. Communication devices are often personal computers or mobile telephones. These communication devices can receive and transmit electronic mail messages over a network. The network can be public or private as well as wired or wireless.
Although email is an effective means of communication, when a sender is using a mobile telephone, composing an email message can be tedious and difficult. User interfaces can provide limited assistance to users such as by creating email messages through word prediction, predetermined responses, etc. Nevertheless, given the difficulties with composing messages, email messages from mobile telephones in most cases are relatively short. Recently, communication devices, including mobile telephones, have been able to send and receive instant messages, which are short text messages sent and received in near real time between communication devices.
Apart from sending and receiving email messages, mobile telephones can also display the location or availability (i.e., online or offline) of other users via their mobile telephones. This information is provided by a wireless service provider that monitors location or availability of users via their mobile phones. Unfortunately, such information needs the assistance of wireless service providers and tends not to be widely available. Moreover, if such information is available, the information would very likely not be current and thus the usefulness of the information would be limited.
Thus, there is a need for improved approaches to enhance the capabilities of messaging.